Industrial Unionism?

The RMT trade union announced merger talks with the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA). A combined RMT and TSSA would have 110,000 members and cover all roles across the rail network from train drivers to signallers. RMT has about 80,000 members compared with 30,000 at TSSA.

Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, welcomed "This is a historical day for the trade union movement. These talks will bring together two unions each with over a hundred years of specialising in the transport industry in the interests of workers." while his TSSA counterpart, Gerry Doherty, said bringing the unions together would "Today's decision will hopefully be the start of a process designed to serve the interests of future generations of transport and travel trade workers. We owe an obligation to our children and our children's children to leave better organisations that protect workers in the very uncertain future that they currently face.".

The official statement also referred to both unions working together through a "federation structure" that would allow much closer co-operation "with a view to moving towards a merger". The RMT and TSSA have worked together during last year's strikes over ticket office closures, despite tough rules on joint walkouts, by staging joint strike action on the London Underground.

The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association, TSSA, was founded in Sheffield in 1897 as the National Association of General Railway Clerks, being renamed the Railways Clerks' Association, or RCA, in 1899. It gained its present title in 1951. The RMT – the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers – was formed in 1990 from a merger of the National Union of Railwaymen and the National Union of Seamen. The NUR itself went back to 1913, the year that it was formed from a merger of three existing unions.

ASLEF (18500 members) would remain as the last separate union in the railways , although some other railway staff are now members of UNITE. Both RMT and TSSA agreed that the door will remain open for other smaller transport unions to join the discussions in due course.

The loss of union effectiveness arises from the way in which, historically, unions have come to be organised. Often the workers employed by a particular company and the workers in an industry are organised on occupational lines, in separate unions. This has the result that wage claims and strikes can fail to make maximum impact because not all the unions are involved in the action. Tying the unions to one or other of the parties of capitalism promotes division. Workers join trade unions in recognition of their common interest against the employers. They need to learn that no matter which political party is in power its weight will be thrown in support of the employers against them in their struggles.

The Socialist Party holds that the working class must be organised, both politically and economically, for the establishment of socialism. The trade unions will provide the basis of the economic organisation of the working class to operate the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution when the capitalist ruling class have been dislodged from political power.